between (our two bloods mingled be)
by Aelibia
Summary: Naruto learns a lot of things about love and relationships after the war. Naruto, Gaara, and Sakura. Polyamory fic.


As dense as Naruto knew he could be, he couldn't really say he was all that surprised with the way things turned out.

He found out about Gaara and Sakura rather suddenly in the immediate aftermath of the war, while wandering the halls of the Allied Forces' home base in a daze. Breathy moans coming from a darkened corner of the intelligence room drew him in. In Naruto's heightened, war-weary state his immediate thought was to find and help the person calling out in pain, thinking nothing of the other sorts of moans humans made.

He certainly hadn't expected to burst in on Sakura, her hands braced against the wall, and Gaara, balls deep in her box and doing his best to send the appreciative lady clear through the stonework. Blushing furiously, Naruto backpedaled and mumbled an apology, resolving never again to go in a room without knocking.

War changed people, he decided.

The next time Sakura saw him, a few hours later and clothed, she only bit her lip and giggled at Naruto's secondary apology.

"He's pretty good, you know," she said, bumping her hip with his. "Very attentive. You should give him a go when you have the chance."

"I'm _kidding, _Naruto," she added after watching him choke on his sake for several minutes.

But in the end, she was right.

He saw the two of them together two months later at some dango stand in Konoha and attempted to give them a wide berth, simply not having it in him to navigate whatever weirdness was surely waiting for him there. Like an idiot, he'd forgotten Gaara was a sensor type and a sand clone accosted him in Gaara's polite-but-insistent manner on the far side of the street.

He had no choice, then, but to join them for their mid-afternoon snack and determinedly not think about their butts while stuffing his face full of dango. Cordial conversation flowed between them and over his head but he offered no more than a few noncommittal sounds here and there.

"So Naruto, I heard Kaka-sensei is training you more seriously to be Hokage. How is that going for you?"

"Dunno. Okay."

"Naruto, I never did get to invite you to Suna properly. It seems every time we've met before, some catastrophe is bearing down on us. I would be honored to have you as my guest at any time."

"Hnn."

He didn't miss the hurt glances the two of them shared. Unfortunately, his bucket of inspiring speeches to save the day did not also store tension defusers for interacting with people you accidentally saw naked. So instead, he sat in a sullen slump and felt like a piece of shit about it.

In an act of mercy, Sakura informed Naruto that if he had other places to be, he didn't have to stay, but that he was welcome at her place later to talk.

Fat chance of that. He _knew _Gaara was staying at her place. His retainers hadn't come to pick up the key to the diplomatic suite like they always did, and it didn't take a genius to figure out where he'd obtained bonus accommodations.

"If you're upset with me, I'd like to know, Naruto. You know you're a very dear friend to me." The other man crept up on him outside Naruto's apartment door, leaning himself against the doorframe in such a way that it was impossible to pass by without some sort of altercation.

"If it's about what you saw," Gaara began, and Naruto hated the way the Gaara's words brought such color to his cheeks–he was a war hero, god damn it. Conflicting emotions brawled within his brain with no end in sight, and all he wanted to do was make Gaara shut the hell up.

"I didn't intend to make you feel as though I was taking Sakura away from you," Gaara continued. "Actually, she did express support in–"

Kissing, Naruto found, was an _excellent _way to get people to shut up. And so was oral sex, as he found out 20 minutes later in his living room with Gaara's cock as far down his throat as he could get it.

Pretty hard for Gaara to bullshit a dear friend with flowery diplomatic-speak when said dear friend had him gripping the arm of the couch until the fabric tore.

Gaara ended up spending the rest of the night at Naruto's place, and somewhere between the bed and the floor Naruto meditated on his complete lack of shame at skipping out on Sakura's invitation.

Later, Naruto reflected that it had been a very okay way to lose his virginity. And it did explain a lot of things.

Over breakfast–of course you made breakfast for the man who bent you over your kitchen table, it was just manners–Naruto waited for the shameful apology and Gaara's admission to having done Sakura wrong, but the Kazekage only shrugged and said that Sakura had hoped things would end this way.

"She likes us both," Gaara said. "And she and I will be in between here and Sand quite a bit in the coming months helping with reconstruction efforts. So she plans to see me, and I'd like to see you. If you're alright with that, of course."

For a moment Naruto wanted to be cagey out of spite, still reeling from walking in on the two of them and not giving a damn about the hypocrisy. But Gaara's secret little smiles had a way of getting at everyone, their rarity making them that much more precious. And, he told himself, he _did _like Gaara.

"Sakura will be pleased," Gaara said, and left the apartment with a whirl of sand.

Sakura waited a respectable amount of time before finding Naruto again, and invited Naruto in for tea. Nervously, he wondered aloud if they were _also _supposed to sleep with each other, but Sakura only laughed gently and said things weren't required to work that way.

"We can talk about it if you want," she said, but Naruto, frankly, had had enough of complicated relationships for the time being, and left shortly after. That evening he treated himself to the finest ramen money could buy, his reward for enduring whatever the hell this was turning into.

He and Sakura did talk later at her insistence, because communication–she told him this in her teachery voice–was critical for any relationship but especially one with multiple people in it. Naruto huffed and rolled his eyes but the lecture was, despite his reluctance, quite helpful for thinking up some ground rules.

It could get a little weird, he reflected, when all three of them were in the same place at once. Who was going to spend time with who? Was Gaara going to stay with one person and then immediately cavort off to the other? Was it okay to be a little jealous at first? Of Gaara _and _Sakura? Would they have to make a chart?

But Naruto, dazed from a war and numerous betrayals, ultimately decided to ride the learning curve one eye closed. It'd certainly be a shift in his usual routine of throat-punching reality until reality fit the mold of his choosing. Who really knew what tomorrow held, anyway?

After all–the thought came to him somewhere in the space between Gaara and the Kazekage's desk–it certainly made diplomacy a lot more interesting.

* * *

A/N: If you have a prompt you'd like to see in 1000-word form, do drop a line. No promises.


End file.
